The Third Estate Sunday Review focuses on politics and culture. We're an online magazine. We don't play nice and we don't kiss butt. In the words of Tuesday Weld: "I do not ever want to be a huge star. Do you think I want a success? I refused "Bonnie and Clyde" because I was nursing at the time but also because deep down I knew that it was going to be a huge success. The same was true of "Bob and Carol and Fred and Sue" or whatever it was called. It reeked of success."

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Why Obama’s ‘war on ISIS’ must be opposed

Why Obama’s ‘war on ISIS’ must be opposed

President Barack Obama announced
Sept.10 that the U.S. military would build an international coalition to
make “war on the Islamic State.” He said there were already 10
countries in this coalition. Administration spokespeople on the Sept. 14
Sunday morning talk shows said they were still building the coalition.
The next morning a conference of 30 countries opened in Paris on this
theme.

The electronic media and the pages of major newspapers — the New York
Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Christian Science
Monitor, for example — were filled with debate on Obama’s new war
policy. Active and retired Pentagon officers, State Department
officials, policy strategists from the imperialist think tanks and op-ed
writers all put out their critiques of Obama’s strategy of opening
another long U.S. war while promising no U.S. “boots on the ground.”

Arguments raged from “just right” to “too little, too late,” with
only a few saying “no way.” Many of the retired officers — for example,
General Jack Keane, who urges a policy even more aggressive than what
Obama proposes — are currently sitting on the boards of military
contractors. That’s one sector of U.S. capitalism that gains from war,
whichever way the battle goes.

That this debate is going on in front of the public reflects
hesitations within the U.S. ruling class about the wisdom of waging yet
another open-ended U.S. war of conquest in West Asia. More important
than reviewing their arguments is the need to stress what this debate is
really about: They are discussing what foreign policy will best defend
and expand the strategic and economic interests of the U.S. ruling
class.

What’s at stake are the interests of the richest one hundredth of the
1%, those who own the oil companies, the weapons industry, the banks
and the other major monopolies. To the debaters, this tiny but
super-wealthy and powerful group’s interests are paramount.

Far from aiding Syrians or Iraqis, U.S. imperialism’s aims are
antagonistic to the interests of the masses of people there.
Washington’s new war also has nothing to do with defending the interests
of the working class in the United States. It will not protect the
Black people of Ferguson, Mo., from racist cops. It will not protect
workers from low wages and layoffs. There is already talk of raising the
Pentagon budget, thereby exempting it from sequester cuts imposed on
the federal budget.What U.S. policy did

Starting with the war in 1991 and the subsequent sanctions against
the Iraqi people, followed by the invasion in 2003 that led to eight
years of occupation, U.S. war crimes tore Iraqi society apart. U.S.-led
wars and sanctions killed between 1 million and 2 million people. They
demolished Iraq’s economic infrastructure and drove 5 million more into
exile. U.S. occupation policies divided Iraqi society and provoked a
sectarian civil war.

Washington and its allies in NATO and West Asia have also caused
great loss of life and destruction in Syria. NATO, including Turkey,
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, weaponized the groups fighting
the Syrian government. Most arms wound up in the hands of groups like
al-Nusrah Front and ISIS (also called ISIL or just I.S.). Hundreds of
thousands of people were killed; millions became refugees. Without NATO
and Saudi Arabian aid, ISIS would have stayed local.

Various media claim that the repeated showing of two reporters from
the U.S. and one from Britain being executed by ISIS have whipped up
some popular fervor for “revenge” — although this mood falls short of
support for another Iraq-type war.

While popular revulsion to the televised beheadings is
understandable, think of what U.S. imperialism has done. U.S. weapons
killed millions of Iraqis and Syrians. They, like the reporters, were
victims of terror.

Much ruling-class debate involves what relationship the U.S. should
have with the governments of Syria and Iran. Washington has demonized
these two governments and steadily worked to overthrow Bashar al-Assad
in Syria and sabotage the economy of Iran. Yet both Syria and Iran have
been on the front lines fighting against ISIS.

So far, U.S. spokespeople insist they will make no agreements with
Syria or Iran. Actually, there is good reason to suspect that — should
the “war on ISIS” be successful — it will quickly morph into a U.S. war
against Syria.

It is the pinnacle of imperialist arrogance to pose, as many have in
the ruling-class debate, the question: “Should the U.S. help resolve the
conflicts in the Middle East?”

Washington’s past interventions have brought only misery and
suffering to the region. From the point of view of the interests of all
the people involved in the region, as well as those of the working class
here, the only thing the U.S. can rightly do is get out, stay out and
pay reparations to rebuild what it has wrecked.

Articles copyright 1995-2014 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this
notice is preserved.

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Jim, Dona, Jess, Ty, "Ava" started out this site as five students enrolled in journalism in NY. Now? We're still students. We're in CA. Journalism? The majority scoffs at the notion.
From the start, at the very start, C.I. of The Common Ills has helped with the writing here. C.I.'s part of our core six/gang. (C.I. and Ava write the TV commentaries by themselves.) So that's the six of us. We also credit Dallas as our link locator, soundboard and much more. We try to remember to thank him each week (don't always remember to note it here) but we'll note him in this. So this is a site by the gang/core six: Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I. (of The Common Ills).